Category: Women in Ministry

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Church governance Church Manual Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP) delegated authority Doctrine of the Church Doctrine of Unity E-60 Gary Patterson General Conference General Conference Session 2015 San Antonio General Conference Working Policy Insubordination NAD Working Policy Ordination Without Regard to Gender OrdinationTruth.com Theology of Ordination Study Committee (TOSC) Unilateral Action Unity Utrecht General Conference Session 1995 Women in Ministry Women's Ordination

Questions & Answers regarding current issues of unity facing the Church

Last year a document was released that quite succinctly answered some of the key questions in the present controversy over unity and the ordination of women. That document was titled Questions & Answers Regarding Current Issues of Unity Facing the Church. We reproduce this document here in hopes of lending it wider circulation. This document was subtitled, “A response by the General Conference Officers and Division Presidents” (i.e., the top 25 world leaders of the Adventist Church).
We also remind visitors to this site that CAP has made available a document summarizing developments of the past five years titled E-60 and the WO Endgame, which is also quite useful in understanding these developments. Finally, a third document addresses similar policy questions as the above and may be helpful. That document is titled Church policy, Church unity, and Women’s Ordination.

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Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP) General Conference General Conference Session 2015 San Antonio Ordination Without Regard to Gender OrdinationTruth.com Seventh-day Adventist Church Theology of Ordination Study Committee (TOSC) Trans-European Division (TED) Women in Ministry Women's Ordination YEM

Trans-European Division seeks WO

The Trans-European Division at its 2013 Year-end Meeting made several recommendations connected with the issue of Women’s Ordination. Among its recommendations to the world church: “Removing the intricate differences between various levels of ministry, such as the licensed and ordained minister, the licensed minister and the ordained local church elder, the pastor and the local church elder,” that the Church “remove all gender distinctions in its Working Policy related to the ministry,” that “unions, whose constituency meetings in session have voted approval and whose division committee has voted approval, be allowed to maintain an inclusive pastoral ministry which removes all gender distinctions within the work of the church in that union territory,” “recommend that the ritualistic and consecrational flavour of the act of ordination, its vague mixture of granting the Holy Spirit or gifts for ministry and ecclesiastical authority be radically toned done and removed from policy and practice,” recommends “that the imposition of hands be an optional part of the ceremony,” and asks that the church “separate Ordination from Election to an Organisational Office of Leadership.” An article reporting more fully can be found here:
http://www.ted-adventist.org/news/ted-executive-committee-recommends-inclusive-ministry-without-gender-distinctions
A committee in the Division has been at work on these issues for 19 months. Over the coming months TED has plans to offer well over 1,000 pages of material they hope will support these ideas and others. The TED report is by far the legthiest to be sent to the GC Theology of Ordination Study Committee (TOSC). TED is also the smallest of the 13 world divisions in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, having some 84,000 members.

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Church governance Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP) Doctrine of the Church Doctrine of Unity General Conference General Conference Session 2015 San Antonio General Conference Working Policy Insubordination NAD TOSC Report NAD Working Policy NAD Year-end Meeting Ordination Without Regard to Gender Ted N.C. Wilson Theology of Ordination Study Committee (TOSC) Unilateral Action Unity Women in Ministry Women's Ordination

Ted Wilson: The State of the Church

State of the Church – Ted Wilson from GCComm on Vimeo.

BREAKING NEWS. This video was released late on the afternoon of Thursday, November 14, 2013. In it, Pastor Ted N.C. Wilson, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, shares a “state of the church” address. The release of this message directly to the church viewership in this way is unusual. Wilson tells about the powerful movings of the Holy Spirit upon the church round the world right now, but also shares four special concerns which are weighing on his heart. Included among these is a special concern over disunity and some segments of the Church ignoring the agreed policies by which the church works together.

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1 Corinthians 1 Timothy Biblical Interpretation Clinton Wahlen Complimentarian Deborah Distinct roles Doctrine of Unity Edwin E. Reynolds General Conference Session 2015 San Antonio Genesis Headship Historical-grammatical method NAD TOSC Minority Report NAD TOSC Report NAD Year-end Meeting North American Division (NAD) Ordination Without Regard to Gender OrdinationTruth.com Principle-based Historical-cultural Method Rio Document 1986 Seventh-day Adventist Church Theology of Ordination Study Committee (TOSC) Women in Ministry Women's Ordination

NAD Minority Report

It may appear to the world church that the North American Division is immovably united in favor of Women’s Ordination. This is far from the case. Many Adventists in the small towns surrounding our universities in North America do favor Women’s Ordination. There are a few geographical locations like Southern California, Western Oregon, and parts of Ohio, where this is also the case. However, it is probably still true that the majority of Adventists in North America are not committed to Women’s Ordination. Many oppose it on serious biblical grounds.
Many NAD administrators and scholars seem in favor. But not all. For example, Edwin E. Reynolds teaches in the religion department at Southern Adventist University. Clinton Wahlen is an associate director of the Biblical Research Institute. Both are members in the North American Division and were among those selected to engage in study on behalf of the North American Division Theology of Ordination Study Committee. They have prepared a powerful study in which they dissent from the Majority report. This material is included as part of the NAD Report released on November 2, 2013. We have made available in the following link the full North American Division Theology of Ordination Study Committee Minority Report.
http://ordinationtruth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/nad-ordination-14-minority.pdf
In the report, Reynolds and Wahlen point in particular to the central issue of interpretive method. “The current divergence in views on the subject of women’s ordination is due in part to different understandings of the nature of Scripture and how it should be interpreted. . . Some advocate an approach that takes into account the ‘trajectory’ of Scripture. . . extrapolated so that the trajectory beyond and outside of Scripture can be seen. . . such an approach, even though it might broadly affirm the Bible’s inspiration, nevertheless undermines it by characterizing selected portions of Scripture as time- and culture-bound and, therefore, tinged with the author’s prejudicial views on such topics, rather than God’s thoughts which are valid for all places and all time” (p. 195). The authors are concerned about this approach, and warn, “it is one thing to study the historical-cultural backgrounds to enlighten our understanding of the setting in which the text was written; it is another thing altogether to suggest that the text was culturally conditioned and that, therefore, a trajectory beyond the text must be constructed for our current, more enlightened age” (pp. 196, 197).
Reynolds and Wahlen look closely at passages like Genesis two, Deborah in Judges, 1 Timothy 2, 1 Corinthians 11, among others. They conclude that “ordaining women represents a significant departure from the biblical model” (p. 207). And, they warn that “To follow the Bible model on the issue of women’s ordination will require courage like that of our pioneers. Nevertheless, it is the only basis on which we can expect to maintain global unity, receive God’s continued blessing, and, most importantly, anticipate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to finish His work” (p. 208).
Among the varied studies produced on Women’s Ordination in the past five years in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, few illuminate so much in so compact a space as this document. The Council of Adventist Pastors encourages all to read the NAD Theology of Ordination Study Committee Report Minority Report.

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Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP) OrdinationTruth.com Seventh-day Adventist Church South Pacific Division (SPD) Theology of Ordination Study Committee (TOSC) Women in Ministry Women's Ordination YEM

South Pacific Division: study favors WO

With Year-end Meetings occurring in the 13 divisions across the world field, the reports of each division are being received by those divisions in preparation to be passed to the GC Theology of Ordination Study Committee. These reports are scheduled to be presented to TOSC in January 2014.
The South Pacific Division, which includes Australia and many other units in the South Pacific region, has received its Biblical Research Committee report favoring Women’s Ordination. More information, as well as a six-page summary of their work, can be found here:
http://record.net.au/items/spd-recommends-womens-ordination.

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Church governance Gender Headship Inter-European Division (IED) Northern German Union OrdinationTruth.com Priesthood of all believers Theology of Ordination Study Committee (TOSC) Women in Ministry Women's Ordination YEM

Inter-European Division: there is ‘room for women’s ordination'

The report that follows was made public today (November 12, 2013) by the Inter-European Division. While we do not concur with the decision of their study committee, we share their news release here as pertinent to the the chief topic we have been investigating.

Madrid, Spain [Corrado Cozzi]. The Inter-European Division will recommend to the Seventh-day Adventist world church’s Theology of Ordination Study Committee that there is room for the church to ordain women to pastoral ministry.

The recommendation follows study of the papers presented at the division’s Biblical Research Committee [BRC] as well as those prepared for the Theology of Ordination Study Committee this year from January 15 to 17 and July 22 to 24.

The process is part of the world church’s ongoing study of the theology of ordination, which was first established at the denomination’s General Conference Session in 2010. Each of the Adventist Church’s 13 world divisions is preparing its own report, and world church officials have promised to bring back a compiled report to the 2015 General Conference Session.

The Inter-European Division’s recommendation stems from several points:

  1. The Bible does not specifically define what ordination for
    pastoral ministry is.
  2. There are no direct statements in the Bible either commanding or
    prohibiting women’s ordination.
  3. As the church felt free to develop its organizational structure
    to further its mission based on biblical principles, division BRC
    members consider ordination not as a doctrinal or biblical issue, but something that must be handled at an administrative level.
  4. There are no clear biblical principles that would require or
    guide the application of the principle of headship in the family or the church.
  5. The Old Testament priesthood has its fulfillment in the unique
    priesthood of Christ, which is the basis for the priesthood of all
    believers.
  6. BRC members were unclear over why ordination requires a
    differentiation between genders that doesn’t exist in other levels of ministry or service, such as teachers, deacons, prophets and leaders.

Based on the report of the Biblical Research Committee, the Executive Committee of the Inter-European Division recommends the ordination of women to pastoral ministry, taking into consideration the possibility of applying it according to the needs of the fields (http://eud.adventist.org/news/detail/date/2013/11/12/inter-european-division-will-recommend-that-there-is-room-for-womens-ordination/, accessed 2013-11-12).

The decision was made at the Division’s 2013 Year-end Meeting. The Inter-European Division is one of 13 Divisions which make up the world-wide Seventh-day Adventist Church. There are nearly 18 million members of the church. Inter-European Division has approximately 178,000 members. It is composed of the Austrian, Bulgarian, Czecho-Slovakian, Franco-Belgian, Italian, North German, Portuguese, Romanian, South German, Spanish, and Swiss Unions.

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Adventist Today Church governance Church Manual Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP) delegated authority Distinct roles Doctrine of the Church Doctrine of Unity Ellen G. White Gary Patterson Gender General Conference General Conference Working Policy Headship Insubordination Kevin D. Paulson Male-sex specific roles NAD Working Policy North American Division (NAD) Ordination Without Regard to Gender OrdinationTruth.com Pacific Union Conference (PUC) Raj Attiken Seminary Spectrum Magazine Unity Utrecht General Conference Session 1995 Women in Ministry Women's Ordination

Church Policy, Church Unity, and Women's Ordination

Kevin D. Paulson takes a look at the authority of the General Conference. He responds to charges presently being published on other websites that the General Conference, in asking that Unions not ordain women, has exceeded its authority. Gary Patterson offers such ideas. Paulson checks them against the Working Policy. FIND IT HERE.

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Church governance Church Manual Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP) Doctrine of the Church Doctrine of Unity E-60 General Conference General Conference Working Policy Insubordination Male-sex specific roles NAD Working Policy North American Division (NAD) Ordination Without Regard to Gender OrdinationTruth.com Polity Sandra Roberts Sandy Roberts SECC Seventh-day Adventist Church Southeastern California Conference Unilateral Action Unity Women in Ministry Women's Ordination

SECC elects woman president

Constituents of the Southeastern California Conference (SECC) voted today directly contradicting the global position of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA). The SDA Church does not accept Women’s Ordination or the placement of women in the conference presidency. But today, October 27, 2013, the SECC made Sandra E. Roberts its president. The vote occurred during the Quinquennial Constituency meeting held at the La Sierra University Church in Riverside, California. The SECC has been a subsection and interlocking unit of the world SDA Church.
The president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Pastor Ted N.C. Wilson phoned Pacific Union president Ricardo Graham Saturday evening and stated that such action, if voted, was out of policy, and that the General Conference would not recognize her as president. (SECC is part of the Pacific Union.) This information was shared with the delegates. During the meeting, several delegates spoke in opposition to the action and in support of the world church. But eventually, the majority voted to elect Roberts.
Southeastern California Conference is a part of the 18 million member Seventh-day Adventist Church. The Church has been carefully organized as an interlocking community. Local members are joined in their local church congregation; these congregations are organized together as conferences; conferences are organized together into unions; unions are organized into divisions of the General Conference. The whole in combination make up one united Seventh-day Adventist Church.
SECC’s meeting was a conference constituency level meeting; the most authoritative administrative body of the Church is the General Conference session. Delegates gather together from round the globe for General Conference sessions every five years. The most recent session was in 2010 and the next in 2015. The meeting enables Spirit-led collective decision making.
In 1990 and 1995 General Conference sessions the Church rejected proposals to permit individual divisions, unions, or conferences (like SECC) to ordain women. As a global organization connecting congregations in more than 220 nations, every subsection of the Church is committed to adhere to determinations offered in General Conference sessions. Unilateral contrary actions—such as that today voted by SECC—are disunifying in nature and prima facie evidence of direct opposition to the world church.
Voted action by 567 SECC delegates has now placed Ms. Roberts and SECC in exactly such a position.
What next? In just four days (Oct. 31) North American Division Year-end Meetings begin, where those gathered include the NAD conference presidents. But current Church Manual (p. 32) and current NAD Working Policy (E-60, p. 244) explicitly prohibit a woman from serving in this position. The North American Division will not be able to include Mrs. Roberts as a presidential participant in its meetings without joining itself to SECC in premeditated opposition toward the world church. All eyes will be on the North American Division and its president as it opens its Year-end Meeting.
The world church is watching the North American Division. After all, ultimately it was NAD’s change of Working Policy E-60 in 2010—and later recognition of its having exceeded its own authority—that led NAD President Dan Jackson to instruct NAD unions on January 31, 2012 concerning how to “move this matter forward” and “consider new approaches,”

“The North American Division and its Unions and Conferences (as local circumstances permit) must become more intentional in the development of pathways to ministry for female pastors. We must also develop intentional methods of mentoring women who can take on executive leadership positions within our conferences. . . . We must continue to move this matter forward throughout the North American Division. . .” (See E-60 Letter, Dan Jackson, http://ordinationtruth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/nadletterdanjackson-e60.pdf).

In the same letter, Jackson admitted that in adding the word “commissioned,” NAD had erred and indicated that the word “commissioned” would be removed from NAD Working Policy in the 2011-2012 edition. Thus, NAD Working Policy presently states that “a conference/mission president should be an ordained minister of experience.”
Ms. Roberts does not meet this requirement. Nevertheless, the NAD now has what they wanted—a woman in an executive position of leadership.
But, as much as some NAD officers might like to, the NAD—even president Jackson—cannot with impunity include Mrs. Roberts as a voting participant in the 2013 Year-end meeting in contradiction to NAD and GC Working Policy.
The NAD, already on precarious ground, claiming to respect and stand in harmony with the Church, now has opportunity to show itself part of the world church—by upholding the authorized practices of the world church.
The crisis which has been caused by the NAD has now landed again on their own door step. The global Adventist Church will have evidence whether or not the NAD officers shall demonstrate true respect for the sisterhood of Adventist churches round the world very soon now. On October 31, NAD shall either respect the world church and disallow Ms. Roberts’ participation in the Year-end Meeting, or, they will include her, in demonstration of a spirit of opposition to the world church.

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Ad Hoc Committee on Women in Leadership Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP) Doctrine of the Church Doctrine of Unity E-60 General Conference Headship Insubordination North American Division (NAD) North Pacific Union Conference (NPUC) NPUC Executive Committee NPUC Supporting Pastors Ordination Without Regard to Gender OrdinationTruth.com Sandra Roberts Sandy Roberts SECC Seventh-day Adventist Church Southeastern California Conference Unilateral Action Unity Women in Ministry Women's Ordination

Announcing the Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP)

NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Council of Adventist Pastors (CAP)
PO Box 19424
Spokane, WA 99219
OrdinationTruth.com
cap-contact@runbox.com
NPUC, October 25, 2013: Seventh-day Adventist Church members, especially within the North American Division (NAD) territory, continue to be subjected to a misguided and disunifying drive for the ordination of women to pastoral and administrative headship positions. Actions continue to be taken by conferences, unions, and the Division itself attempting to force this change. Consider briefly recent developments demonstrating what appears an attitude of rebellion toward the General Conference.
One decisive step came on January 31, 2012, when the North American Division president wrote to officers, telling them that

“The North American Division and its Unions and Conferences (as local circumstances permit) must become more intentional in the development of pathways to ministry for female pastors. We must also develop intentional methods of mentoring women who can take on executive leadership positions within our conferences. . . . We must continue to move this matter forward throughout the North American Division. . .” (See E-60 Letter, Dan Jackson, http://ordinationtruth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/nadletterdanjackson-e60.pdf).

Action was swift after NAD president Jackson’s encouragement that NAD Unions be more “intentional.” Just 36 days later, the Mid-America Union Conference Executive Committee voted to ordain “without regard to gender.” Attempt was made to move the NPUC “forward” similarly (but delayed in this Union’s case by the creation of an ad hoc study committee).
Nevertheless, by summer, constituency sessions of the Columbia Union Conference on July 29, 2012 and the Pacific Union Conference on August 19, 2012 engaged in actions clearly defying General Conference session actions. These Unions voted to ordain persons to the gospel ministry “without regard to gender.” They voted to place women in positions biblical principle has reserved to males.
In contrast, another group of pastors, church officers, and laity within the territory of the North American Division, insist that unity be maintained with the world church. Seventh-day Adventists said “No” to women in men’s roles initiatives in 1990 and 1995 General Conference sessions. No unit is independent. All church members and organizational units are bound to respect those decisions until the General Conference in world session votes a change in policy.
But the spirit of independence has continued and is intensifying. On October 27, 2013, the Southeastern California Conference (SECC) constituency may vote a woman president of that conference. Therefore, the church workers who operate OrdinationTruth.com have been led to promote unification with the world church and discourage insubordination and disunifying activities in the NAD and its unions.
The “North Pacific Union Conference Supporting Pastors” (NPUC-SP) came into being in December 2012 and launched the website OrdinationTruth.com on February 4, 2013 after the NPUC Executive Committee had announced that they would “educate” church members in respect to “ordination without regard to gender,” then, as Columbia and Pacific Unions, hold a special constituency meeting centered on the topic.
NPUC pastors have been contacted by those who take a similar anti-insubordination position in other unions within the North American field. The pastors are ready to work with others wishing to organize. This news release announces their new identity collectively as the “Council of Adventist Pastors” (CAP).
Sections may further organize themselves by Union territories into union-region based “chapters.” The name “Council of Adventist Pastors” (CAP) now becomes the main designation for this group and potential subgroups crossing the North American Division.
A conscious decision has been made that OrdinationTruth.com not limit itself to issues in the North Pacific Union Conference only but also to address questions being asked throughout the Division. Because the Union monthly magazines (Recorder, Gleaner, Messenger, Outlook, etc.) have been presenting only one side of the question, OrdinationTruth.com exists to provide a different perspective—especially from the excluded voices of Seventh-day Adventist Pastors and members opposing WO. CAP participants state that all sides of a question should be made available, and that the presentation only of a pro-Women’s Ordination position is unsatisfactory; the Church deserves better.
To this end, the group has, since the launch of OrdinationTruth.com on February 4, 2013, published numerous pages of opinion, analysis, news, theology, and commentary on Women’s Ordination, Unity, and kindred topics. Henceforth, the name of NPUC-SP is changed to “Council of Adventist Pastors, NPUC Chapter.” OrdinationTruth.com is operated on behalf of all CAP and shall continue to function in consultation with other CAP chapters.
CAP invites interested church members worldwide to peruse the materials published on OrdinationTruth.com. Those materials are presented in support of the perspective widely held by church members and many workers throughout the NAD and the world church, insisting the Church search out God’s design in these matters together as a body, and stand united together in practice. For the sake then of the membership of the Seventh-day Adventist Church worldwide, the Council of Adventist Pastors takes up this mantle.
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1 Timothy ATLA Biblical Interpretation Culturally driven F.F. Bruce Feminist Theology Foundations of Women's Ordination Galatians Historical-Critical Method Krister Stendahl Larry Kirkpatrick OrdinationTruth.com Religion Index One Robert W. Yarbrough Second Wave Feminist Theology Thomas R. Shreiner Women in Ministry Women's Ordination

Is Women's Ordination culturally rather than biblically driven?

Pastor Larry Kirkpatrick takes a look at findings prepared by Robert Yarbrough and makes a “surprise” discovery: theological studies supporting Womens’ Ordination published in Theological Journals suddenly change direction in 1969. Who would have imagined that? FIND IT HERE.